Home by Larissa Behrendt

Howard, living in Parkes with only memories from before the war when there was a family in her life. What was the weakness, she asked herself when she looked into the mirror, that made others — Edward, her mother, her father — not want what she had to give?
    Frances, who had once felt affection and even pity for Elizabeth, now detached herself from the girl who had done the unforgivable. She would pinch Elizabeth on any slight provocation, enjoying squeezing the young girl’s flesh between her own strong fingers. She accompanied such impulses with cruel comments. “No wonder no one wants you,” she would say.
    Elizabeth’s brown skin became tainted for Frances in a way that it had not been before. Before the pregnancy the inferiority of her dark face and arms evoked sympathy. Now the hue would give rise to thoughts that Frances would never have allowed others to express: the darkies were a treacherous race with no morals. Frances felt betrayed by having, at moments in the past, felt a closeness, even an affection, for the traitorous native. She had treated the girl as though she were equal to any other girl on her staff. Now, all concessions and exceptions she had given to Elizabeth were withdrawn. Silence filled the vacuum.

8
    1920
    W HEN THE BABY ARRIVED, the labour pains drowned out every other feeling Elizabeth carried. The force of life exploding from her, the unswallowing, was a most overwhelming physical punishment. Through her screams she cried for her mother. She cried for Euroke. She cried for escape from her loneliness. She cried for the bird’s-eye view of her family’s camp from her tree. She cried for a feeling of long-ago innocence, for a feeling so lost to her that she could not give it a name. As the pain ebbed and subsided, she fell into a deep sleep.
    In her waking moments she dreamt of her new life with little Euroke, his hands reaching out to her, her heart needing him. As she stitched clothes and booties and a little blanket, her bursting love for her child pulsated through her with each heartbeat. She lay impatiently awaiting her reunion with her son, wishing the door would open so her new life could be carried towards her, his limbs outstretched like a naradarn.
    The door did open but it was not the nurse. It was Mrs Carlyle. Elizabeth saw pale skin and a dark linen suit and thought of the terror of the train ride to Parkes, the pungent smell of the police cell and of her brother, her mother, her father. Elizabeth’s tightening flesh forewarned her that Mrs Carlyle’s presence was an evil omen. “Euroke,” she whispered. The lost brother. Now the lost son.
    â€œWell,” began Mrs Carlyle sharply, “I had expected more from you, though I don’t know why.”
    â€œWhere is my son?” Elizabeth demanded, her eyes widening.
    â€œThe baby has been sent off to a good home,” Mrs Carlyle replied briskly.
    â€œBut I want to keep him. He’s mine. He’s mine,” Elizabeth fiercely demanded, clenching her fists.
    â€œHow are you going to look after a baby? You have no money, no husband, and you are only sixteen years old.”
    â€œHe’s mine. I want him. Don’t touch him!” she leaned towards Mrs Carlyle, who stepped back. Elizabeth saw that Mrs Carlyle was edging towards the door, “No,” she began to plead. “I’ll look after him. Please, please, please. Give him to me. Please!”
    Mrs Carlyle stared at the young girl’s face now wrenched with painful urgency. She also saw her clenched fists. She closed the door against Elizabeth’s sobbing pleas and comforted herself that she was giving the little boy a better life than the one he would have had with a girl who could behave so violently and irrationally. “How ungrateful. And how little they know.”
    She reflected on her theory that such children needed to be taken quite young to ensure the best chance of a better life.